I met Kathy on Orkut where Kathy found me in September of 2005. We kept lightly in touch for a while, trading the odd email about favourite authours or random things, and then chance (or design) conspired for us meet in person in Calgary and it was love immediately.
On the eve of July 28th I spent the night in a Banff at a very old family haunt — The Grizzly House. I have so many excellent childhood memories that circle around Banff and the Grizz. My family managed to gather in the same place for the first time since my childhood, ostensibly to celebrate my 30th birthday (and my Mother’s birthday as well!).
This birthday was special to me even before it passed… I’d always known that my 24th birthday would be special; over the years I’d thought of different reasons why it should be special to explain the feeling of anticipation that I’d always had towards it. 24 is the age of adulthood in some magical orders, it’s halfway through my TenYearPlan(tm), and many other reasons. It wasn’t until Elizabeth gave my a beautiful glass box during my second trip to Scotland that I realized why it will be special: I’d found love.
The eve before my birthday, Pam invited me to her Fireworks party to meet her new boyfriend Fausto. We all got along really well even though we had to speak French often (Fausto spoke only Italian and French then). We had a blast — Pam’s parties are always fun! Fausto made dinner and we ate, drank, and drank some more. He brought this wicked Italian liqueur over with him from home called Limoncello that got us all really smashed but still managed to remain appealing the whole night. It’s still a favourite drink of mine…
After the fireworks, we went dancing at the Odyssey for a few hours and had a blast! The club was packed and we danced the entire time 
Despite recovering from my partying the night before, I still had a nice lunch with my Dad and Jill. We went to Milestones and had a relaxing time.
Dinner with Mom was an echo of my 18th birthday, we had a very nice dinner; it was a great end to a special birthday.